


I Once Believed Love Would Be Burning Red, But It's Golden

by sunrise_skies



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast), The Infinite Noise - Lauren Shippen
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hopefully In Character?, M/M, caleb curses but we been knew, caleb's exceptionally angsty summer, idk i feel like adam likes taylor swift, lots of taylor swift lyrics i'm so sorry, nvm it's probably just me projecting, post-breakup pre-getting back together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29933058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunrise_skies/pseuds/sunrise_skies
Summary: Losing Adam was blue. Blue like Caleb had never known. More blue than any of Adam's deep oceans of emotion that he let Caleb close enough to feel. More murky than the blue of missing old friends or family. Tinged with the purple of regret, orange anxieties of what ifs, and slimy icky sludge of something Caleb still hadn't quite grasped.AKA: Alice makes Caleb listen to Taylor Swift and it reminds him of how much he misses Adam after they kind of break up. Very angsty but if I can write the whole thing it'll end up alright :) Takes place between seasons two and three.(Title is from Daylight by Taylor Swift)
Relationships: Adam Hayes/Caleb Michaels
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. Blue Like I’d Never Known

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb thinks about how bad he feels about losing Adam. Very blue.  
> (title is from Red by Taylor Swift)

God, whatever Alice was listening to was seriously fucking with her mood.I did not want to interfere, but it was like she had the thing on loop and it was starting to fuck with me.

I could feel her sharp spikes of defensive surprise that followed my tap on her shoulder. 

“What?” She asked with raised eyebrows, taking out one earbud. 

“What’re you listening to? It’s making your feelings- I don’t know, it’s making you emotional.”

“Wow, we’ve got a real pro with the feelings right here.” She joked.

“I don’t know, they’re all jumbled. What is it?”

“Taylor Swift.” Her feelings were all still messy from the song, mixed with a potential twinge of embarrassment.

“God you’re worse than Adam.”I spoke without thinking.  _ Adam _ . Alice’s eyes widened. God, she missed Adam too. How was that even fucking possible- he was  _ my _ ex-boyfriend. Is missing someone an emotion? Is it more longing or nostalgia? It all gets confusing sometimes.

“Here.” Alice offered me an AirPod and restarted her song. “I think you’ll like it.”

_ Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street _ ...  _ Losing him was blue like I’d never known, missing him was dark gray all alone, forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met, but loving him was red. _

_ Burning red. _

_ Fuck. Don’t cry, Caleb, don’t cry.  _ Now _my_ emotions were a swirling mess. _Fuck_.

...  _ Down a dead end street _ . 

I gave Alice her AirPod back and sat, trying to sort through my own feelings and latch on to her poking curiosity at my thoughts on the song.

“Too close to home?” She asked cautiously.

“No, no, it was good.” I nodded. I didn’t feel like expanding on it. Alice was a little hurt. “It just, yeah, made me think of him.”

My sister nodded softly. I didn’t like the feeling she got when she ran out of quips of backtalk.

“It’s not really blue.” I said. “More of a stormy purple.”

“God you’re weird.” She rolled her eyes and put her earbuds back in. If nothing else, I could rely on Alice and her insults to give me some form of consistency in life.

I spent the rest of the drive thinking. I  _ really  _ wanted to sleep, but Alice’s vibrant emotions with her Taylor Swift discography kept me wide awake. We were heading off to the middle of fucking nowhere to a cabin in the mountains to meet up with family from Mom’s side. My parents had to do a lot of negotiating just to get us in a place where I could have reasonable separation from our family in case things got overwhelming, let alone out of any major city- which felt like overkill to me, but whatever. I had offered to go off to football camp for an extra week and leave them to socialize with our normal family in peace, but alas, here I was.

Sometimes I liked not being able to feel my own feelings. Spending all my energy being consumed by everyone else’s emotion put mine on the back burner for a while, and it was nice. Focusing on my Mom’s excitement about seeing her sister, or Alice’s passion for whatever song she was playing, or even Dad’s tingly nerves regarding my well being was a million times easier than trying and failing to sort through my Adam feelings.

I kind of hate my feelings. 

I wish I could read them myself.  _ What is happening to Adam and I? Are we even broken up? Does he hate me? God I miss him _ .  _ I fucked it all up, didn’t I? _

Losing him was blue. Blue like I’d never known. More blue than any of his deep oceans of emotion that he’d let me get close enough to feel. More murky than the blue of losing friends or even family. Tinged with the purple of regret, orange anxieties of  _ what if _ s, and slimy icky sludge of  something I hadn’t quite grasped yet. 

I put in my own headphones and queued up the playlist he had made me a while back, but I couldn’t bring myself to play it. I thought about texting him. I thought about that a lot. I wish I could make myself do something. Fuck I miss him. I miss his feelings, the way they make me feel. The way he makes me feel.

_ I should tell him. _

_ No, fuck. Fuck. _

I tried to reign my focus into someone else. Alice’s emotions were still the loudest. I think my parents were getting tired, their feelings seemed gray and hazy. 

Maybe the loss was more blue than a deep purple. The dark gray of missing him that came with it was different. I didn’t like either of them.

_ Alice’s feelings _ .  _ God what was she listening to now?  _ She must have noticed me staring. 

“What do you want, weirdo?” She asked. With the music paused I got a better read on her actual feelings. She was annoyed with something, and she didn’t like that I knew, I didn’t even need my ability to tell me that, her face was evidence enough. 

“What’s got you so fed up?” I asked, getting defensive as her emotions started to get sharp, directed at me.

“Get out of my head Caleb.” She groaned.

“I don’t need to read your emotions to know you’re pissed about something.” I turned away from her, as much as I could in the backseat of a car.

“Have you ever thought I get pissed that you feel my feelings?” Alice retorted. “Why don’t you stop clinging to my feelings and try and process your own.”

“Woah there. Alice, apologize to your brother.” Our dad intervened, turning around in his seat to scold us. “And Caleb, don’t press Alice about her feelings.” He sighed. “It’s been a long day in the car for all of us, let’s keep it civil.”

Alice and I sighed, we both put our headphones in and ignored each other for the final hour.

Pulling up to our rental cabin in the woods I was absolutely blindsided by the emotions of five family members I have not encountered in  _ years _ . It wasn’t my greatest moment.But it kept me distracted from how bad I fucked things up with Adam.

The blue of losing my boyfriend, my best friend, my only real friend, didn’t go anywhere. It molded itself into the rest of my feelings for the night. It blended with the excitement of seeing family, and the anger of old unresolved issues between my cousins, my Dad’s anxiety of proving himself to Mom’s family. Together it all formed a cloudy brown, like a dirty cup you put watercolor brushes in.

It all swirled together until I couldn’t distinguish one thing from another. It started to get overwhelming, until somehow all I could find was the deep blue of loss. In all the chaos, I found a sense of normality in the blue. It reminded me of him, and I would take anything to be closer to him right now.

And then the adults got drunk. I excused myself from that one early, and took the room furthest from where my parents and aunt and uncle had gathered.

I laid on the stiff mattress and stared at Adam’s Instagram. 

I wanted to be green again.

I also wanted my cousins to shut the hell up and go to sleep. But I wanted to be back with Adam more. I thought about the green calm he used to make me feel. The way our emotions blended so easily. Eventually I fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! thanks for reading! this is my first time writing for the bright sessions so hopefully it was tolerable and generally in character. thanks again :) more little chapters to come when I can write!


	2. Dark Gray All Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb is sad because he misses Adam (wow, so surprising). Chapter color is gray this time.  
> (Title is from Red by Taylor Swift)

Insane how easy it is to feel so isolated in a room full of people. God now  _ I  _ sound like Adam.

For the first time in a long time, maybe even ever-  _ my _ emotions were undoubtedly the ones I was feeling. Unfortunately they weren’t the greatest emotions.

I found that song that Alice had played in the car and listened to it a few more times. The country-pop wasn’t my favorite but it was still catchy enough to get stuck in my head, and the lyrics had almost made me cry, so I could give it credit for that. It reminded me of something Adam would throw on a mixtape to fuck with me. The way it made me think of him hurt.

_ Missing him was dark gray all alone _

“Earth to Caleb?” My cousin, Emily, called across the table where we were gathered for breakfast. “You all there?”

“Oh, um, yeah. I just didn’t sleep super well.” I nodded softly. Her little bits of concern felt warm.

“How’s football going?” She asked politely. I wasn’t used to my extended family’s feelings the way I was used to Mom, Dad, and Alice’s. Emily’s curiosity was more nervous, we hadn’t seen each other in over a year now. Her feelings were bigger and more harsh. Maybe she was nervous about something else, she was starting college soon. Like I said, harder to tell.

“It’s alright.” I nodded. She radiated some kind of disappointment in my response. “Sorry. Um, I’m looking at varsity this year.” I added. 

Emily lightened up a bit. I tried to focus on her feelings, between everyone and their cross-table discussions. Girls usually had a better grasp on their emotions, a lot more of the processing and understanding than you would get out of guys. When people have a grasp on their own emotions it’s just so much easier. I wish I had a grasp on my emotions.

“You excited to start college?” I asked her, just trying to let the conversation move. I could tell Emily liked talking about school. She got the same glow about it as Adam did.

_ Fuck _ . With every stupid little thing that reminded me of him I was back to drowning in the blue gray ocean, gasping for air and letting water fill my lungs until all I could do was float.

“Caleb?” Emily asked. She had been talking about college for a minute and I had gotten distracted. People didn’t usually notice when I snapped out of things, sometimes it all gets to be a lot.

Before I could even offer my millionth sorry, Emily really looked at me, with the same worry my parents almost always had for me.

“Is everything alright?” Her question drew concern from my parents, and even a bit from Alice who was mediating an argument over the last bacon strip between the two remaining cousins, Morgan and Jamie. 

“Yeah, I’m just tired. Thanks for asking though.” I sighed. I was getting fucking sick of saying I was tired. 

I could tell she didn’t buy it, but we continued on with conversation about summer break and school and college. I let my mind wander back to Adam, as much as I didn’t want it to, it was better than dealing with the eight people in the same room as me.

The dark gray of being all alone stuck with me for the whole trip. It was exhausting, left me annoyed with everyone, made me long so deeply for what I had fucked up. God I just wanted to fix things.

I typed up and then deleted messages under the dinner table. Refreshed his social media, anxiously awaited his snap streaks. It’s so hard to describe something you haven’t felt before. Of course I’ve missed people, and I’ve felt it on others all the time- maybe it’s just different when it’s yours.

God this is all so fucking stupid.

_ Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met _ .

It’s ironic because it’s impossible. There’s no way my thoughts are ever going to move past Adam Hayes.

“What happened to you? I know junior year can be rough, but you seem like you’ve been hit by a bus.” Emily asked, sitting down next to me on the couch with a flavored seltzer water in hand.

I cannot imagine why someone who only really sees me once a year would be so interested in why I seemed off. And dear god I wish I didn’t have to feel how much she was worried. She wasn’t even curious, just concerned.

Fuck I wanted to tell her. Fuck, no. No.

“I really fucked things up with my-” I hesitated. “My boyfriend. Ex I guess.” Emily was surprised but relieved in a way. It was a weird feeling. “We got in this huge fight, and I don’t want your pity,  _ please _ , but it’s hard.” I knew the pity was coming and did my best to stamp it out.

And somehow I was feeling my own emotions double time, like they were hers too. I was beginning to think maybe she was atypical too, an empath like me and that’s how she knew.

“I’m sorry Caleb.” She said. “I understand, it’s really awful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. 

My cousin and I sat there in silence for a bit. I clung to her emotions the way I used to hold on to Adam’s. It wasn’t the same. It never would be. 

Dark gray all alone. Even surrounded by my literal family, I couldn’t find the fucking meaning in any of this shit without Adam. Somehow his emotions were a violent ocean and a lighthouse, all at the same time. I missed him, the way he felt, the way he made me feel.

Fuck I need to get myself together.

_ You should tell him _

No, no no no.

Fuck no.

If blue loss was an ocean, then gray longing was a storm. The feelings work well with nature metaphors. A lingering dark cloud, sometimes pouring, sometimes sprinkling, but always looming. It creates shadows that darken every moment and it’s  _ always _ there.

No matter where I went or what I did for the rest of the summer the thought of Adam lingered in the back of my mind. Whenever I gave myself the opportunity to really think about it I just felt sick to my stomach. 

_ Dark gray all alone _ really summed up things pretty well, as much as I hated it. And I  _ really _ fucking hated it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm not really sure what else to say, um, yeah. Hope you're enjoying me projecting my Taylor Swift obsession onto the boys, or at least tolerating it. Have a good day :)


	3. Loving Him Was Red, Burning Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb reflects on love being a red feeling. Did you know red and green are opposite colors? The red passion and perfect green space mixing together in a brown mess as he think about what he lost. 
> 
> (Title is from Red by Taylor Swift)

We got back home from the mountains after a week and I didn’t even have to feel my family’s concern to know they were drowning in it.

I tried my best to pack up my feelings, it had been _months_. Fuck I need to get over this.

I don’t think I can get over this.

I have to get over this.

“I’m worried about Caleb.” I overheard my mom through our thin walls one night. “He knows it too, I don’t like that he hasn’t said anything about it.”

“Maybe we should go to Doctor Bright.” My dad suggested. I stopped listening, I didn’t really want to hear it.

 _Loving him was red_. 

Originally I had associated red a lot with anger. The whole “seeing red” thing really stuck, but there were other red emotions. And anger usually has some different colored underlying motive. But with Adam there was this incredible passion that he had, and that I had too. And that, that love was red. 

_Burning red_.

We both felt it. I know we did. I know he did. I felt it on him. I used to at least. I missed every part of him. 

_Fuck. Shut up Caleb, shut up._

It was burning red. It was infectious. The way it spread across my body and made me numb and tingly until all I could feel was him. God I fucked up. 

Looking back on it I don’t know if I could ever feel that way again. What are the odds I find someone who can make me feel what he did? 

I wanted to be green again. 

Apparently green and red are opposing colors. Directly across from each other on the color wheel. Chloe explained it to me once, it’s what makes the complimentary.

I liked thinking of it that way. The burning red complimenting the mixed green of our emotions.

Mix any colors long enough and you get brown. Emotions usually aren’t brown. The only thing I’ve ever imagined to be brown is confusion, maybe. That’s probably fitting. 

Without Adam I think I felt a little bit brown. An unidentifiable mix of convoluted emotion. I didn’t know what I felt, I don’t know if I felt anything.

 _Shut up_. Of course I felt it. I felt everything. I’m a fucking empath for fuck's sake. But there’s some kind of nothing within the everything. That sounds all philosophical and shit. Like something Adam would say.

 _Like something Adam would say_. 

_Fuck_. 

_Stop it. Stop it. Fuck. Stop it._

_Fuck it._

Loving him was red. I loved him. I really fucking loved him. Shit. It’s never going to be the same again. I needed him back. I can’t fucking fix this. 

I fucked up such a perfect little thing. I have to fix it. I have to fix it. I have to fix it.

I have to fix him. 

_No_ . You can’t do that. You can’t fix people. There’s nothing to fix, Caleb. _I want to_ . You can’t. You can’t. You can’t fix _that_. You can't fix people.

Burning red. 

I could feel the burning. Every emotion of mine regarding him set me on fire. 

Sometimes I think being an empath makes me feel my own feelings tenfold. I wish it made me understand my emotions tenfold too. I felt like I was on fire with something. Some kind of need or extreme want, or passion. 

Fuck I loved him. I love him. Not past, present, constant.

Now.

Always. 

Fuck. 

Loving him was red. Burning red. 

It still is. It never changed. Loving him _is_ red. In the most emotionally charged, passionate, committed way. Shit. 

_You have to do something_. 

Summer was ending. Something was going to happen soon enough. Good or bad, either way something was going to happen. I needed something to happen. I love him. I knew it, and I know he loved me too. 

The red and green blurred together in my head. I spent a lot of time alone. It was hard to pretend around people all the time. It was hard to be around people with emotions. It’s hard to be around people sometimes. A lot of the time.

Red passion for the green space I wanted.

School started. 

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyyyy thanks for reading! this chapter feels kind of off to me idk, hopefully you like it. thanks for your support! also I bought a copy of a neon darkness from my local bookstore today so I'm excited to read that :) okay have a good day!


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